


Mission: Unsteal

by Cal14



Series: Mother Of Learning - Short Stories [4]
Category: Mother of Learning - nobody103
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Funny, Gen, Zach is an accomplice, kids being kids, the girls roleplay as soldiers/military
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:49:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22619653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cal14/pseuds/Cal14
Summary: Commander Kana seems to have accidentally stolen her father’s alchemical ingredients! It is now the mission of our favorite little girls to return them to Kael’s workshop before anyone notices they’re missing.A story featuring one of the many adventures of Captain Kirielle, Lieutenant Nochka, and Commander Kana (with the occasional appearance of General Imaya and Admiral Zach).
Relationships: Kirielle Kazinski & Kana Tverinov & Nochka Sashal, Kirielle Kazinski & Zach Noveda, Zach Noveda/Zorian Kazinski (implied)
Series: Mother Of Learning - Short Stories [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579648
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Mission: Unsteal

“Is everyone here?”

“There’s only three of us, Kirielle. This is unnecessary.”

Captain Kirielle sighed. Lieutenant Nochka was older than Commander Kana, but she still had problems understanding why it was important for them to take assistance in each of their War Meetings. She obviously had no idea how the real world worked, the poor girl. 

“Then, I’ll begin. Commander Kana?” Captain Kirielle started reading from her list. It was a very professional list, in which each and every member of their Alliance was stated. Except General Imaya, of course, but she was busy in the kitchen. And also Admiral Zach, but he was always with her brother and didn’t participate in the meetings. 

The smallest girl raised her hand. 

“Lieutenant Nochka?”

“Here,” the other girl grunted, as she kicked the floor from her chair. Kirielle passed the list to her, pointing to the remaining name on the list. Lieutenant Nochka loudly exhaled before taking the list into her hands. “Captain Kirielle?” she deadpanned.

“Present!” She took back the list once more, and kept talking. “Since all members are present, we can begin the meeting, now.” Lieutenant Nochka sat up straighter. As much as she liked to complain, she loved the meetings themselves- that is, talking about what they’d done since the last meeting, and planning what to do for the day. “How have the last few days been treating you, fellow comrades?” Captain Kirielle had learnt the word comrade when she overheard Admiral Zach making fun of Zorian. She thought it was pretty formal, so it must be appropriate for a War Meeting. She had to practice a bit before being able to say it without stuttering, though, but it was a price she was willing to pay. Much like her older brother, she didn’t mind putting effort into skills she thought valuable.

“My mom isn’t letting me use my bike because I slightly scratched the couch. It’s super boring, but at least she didn’t ground me like last time. Also, we had curry for dinner last night. I’d never had it before, and I thought it might taste bad because it had a lot of vegetables like carrots and stuff but it wasn’t that bad actually. Maybe we could ask Miss Imaya to make it for us one day? My mom had never cooked it before so I’m sure Miss Imaya can make a better one. She’s great at cooking.” 

“It’s General Imaya, Lieutenant. But I agree, it seems like something we should try out. Any comments, Commander Kana?”

Commander Kana shaked her head. 

“Well, then. In my case, my magic classes with brother and Admiral Zach have been incredibly boring but yesterday they let me use a weird ball that kind of lit up when I put my mana in it. I’m probably not too far from being able to cast spells and do all sorts of magic, so it’s only a matter of time before the Captain you see before you becomes a Captain Archmage.” Both Commander and Lieutenant clapped at this, adequately impressed. 

“Will you teach us magic once you become archmage?”

“Of course. I would never let my most trusted allies live a magicless life.” Lieutenant Nochka opened her mouth, probably to say that her life wouldn’t be magicless regardless of whether she knew how to cast magic or not, but General Imaya interrupted her.

“Girls! If you’re finished there, would you like to help me out in the kitchen? I’m making cupcakes!” At this, all three of them stood up from their respective chairs at the dining table.

“At once, General Imaya!” Captain Kirielle answered her, already running towards the kitchen. “Are we making any chocolate cupcakes?” 

“Of course, I know they’re your favorite, Kirielle. For now I just need you to help me mix the batter and fill the molds. We can decorate them once they’ve left the oven, too.” 

“Are we making the sugary cream?” Lieutenant Nochka asked, as always, the important questions. 

“Buttercream? Of course. But it’ll be better if we make it later rather than now, so don’t worry about that yet. We can’t decorate the cupcakes until they’ve cooled down a bit from the oven anyway, otherwise the buttercream will just melt and it won’t look nice.”

“I see,” Captain Kirielle told her, as she started mixing carefully the bowl with the chocolate batter. “So buttercream is weak to fire. Does that mean it’s strong against ice?” 

“Uh, I’m not sure.”

Captain Kirielle nodded. “We’ll carry an investigation on the matter later.”

After declaring the batter mixed enough and watching Imaya put the molds inside the oven, the three girls decided they deserved a break for their hard work and went to play outside. Lieutenant Nochka and Captain Kirielle were sticking several large branches in the ground to form a wall, intending to build their future headquarters, when Commander Kana ran up to them, two white flower crowns in her hands. 

“Are these for us? They’re so pretty! Thank you!” Nochka readily placed the flower crown Kana extended to her on her head, letting it adorn her hair proudly. 

Meanwhile, Captain Kirielle wasn’t so easily convinced. If she weren’t the type to pay attention to details like these, she wouldn’t be able to hold the position of Captain, after all. “Where did you find these flowers, Kana? I don’t think I’ve seen them around here,” she asked, as she examined the crown. No, she’d never seen those flowers in Cyoria before. Not near their house, nor the park. Not even near Nochka’s house!

The smaller girl shrugged and pointed downwards and sideways, more or less to where Kael’s workshop was located.

Both Lieutenant Nochka and Captain Kirielle blanched at this. “You stole them from your dad’s workshop?!”

“Mr Kael is going to be so mad with us! What are we going to do?” Lieutenant Nochka promptly took the flower crown off her head, careful not to damage it. 

“He’s a really nice guy, but Miss Imaya says that the nicer a person is, the scarier they are when they’re angry.” Captain Kirielle paced around the only wall of their headquarters, trying to find a way out of their imminent doom. “We’re dead,” she declared, looking her allies in the eye. “We’re ghosts now.” 

Kana frowned, and tilted her head.

“No, we’re still military, but we’re dead.” Captain Kirielle hesitated. “Do ghost soldiers exist?” 

“Maybe we can put them back before Mr Kael comes back from school? He won’t even know what happened!” Lieutenant Nochka suggested.

“Fat chance. The workshop’s locked. We’ll only be able to get in once he or brother comes back, and even then one of them will be right behind us, so it’s not like it’ll be easy to put them back.” She frowned. “Unless…”

“Unless?” Lieutenant Nochka asked, hopeful.

“Remember that time I scratched my knee when we were climbing trees?”

“You mean three days ago? Yeah.”

“Well, when that happened, my brother took me into the workshop and put a weird thing on my knee to cure it. I think it was called Salve. Anyway, after he did that Zach called him upstairs for something and he left me alone in the workshop. I just looked around and didn’t get to do much, of course, but if we can recreate that then maybe we still have a chance of giving the flowers back before anyone notices they’re missing. Brother usually comes back for lunch, too, so we should have plenty of time for the operation,” she concluded. Her plan was flawless, as always. She was the best strategist of their army, after all. She wasn’t the Captain for nothing, you know? 

“So one of us should get hurt? To get inside?” Lieutenant Nochka asked. “Though if we’re trying to recreate it exactly then you should be the one who gets hurt.” 

“Uh-” Captain Kirielle hesitated. This wasn’t how she had imagined her plan working out.

“There’s no guarantee Zorian will take Kana or me to the workshop,” she insisted.

“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to get hurt!”

“Well, obviously! Why would I?”

“I already got hurt once! It’s your turn now!”

“No! And it was Kana who stole the flowers, in any case she should be the one taking responsibility.”

“Uh? Have you seen her? She’s smaller than a bean. Beans don’t have responsibilities. Besides, Kael will be ten times angrier at us if we let her get hurt than if we just steal his stupid flowers.” 

“That’s it! We weren’t the ones who stole anything. Why should we fix it?” 

“Because she needs our help! Soldiers are supposed to help people!” 

“That’s heroes! We were already heroes last week! You can’t use that excuse, it’s invalid now. Expired.” 

As the two kept yelling at each other, Commander Kana grew more and more agitated, trying to catch their attention and stop them from fighting to no avail, until she finally broke down crying.

“See? You made her cry. Some soldier that you are,” Captain Kirielle scolded her as she tried to calm Kana down by hugging her.

“I don’t even like soldiers,” Nochka scoffed, starting to walk away from them. “I’m going back to the kitchen.” She turned her head back to tell them this, but while doing so wasn’t able to see the branch standing in front of her, causing her to walk right into it, fall backwards and land on her bottom with a yelp.

“Nochka! Are you okay?” Kirielle immediately went to her aid. Kana trailed right behind her, no longer crying. They both kneeled beside the other girl. 

“Stupid branch, stupid headquarters, and stupid flowers!” the girl cussed as tears started to fill her eyes. 

“Where are you hurt? Kana, please call Imaya. Quick.” The smaller girl nodded and stood up, saluting before leaving, just as they had taught her she should do. 

“Head,” Nochka sniffed, “And my butt hurts too. I don’t think it’s a good idea for our headquarters to have walls, after all.” 

“We could use a blanket. Like in a picnic,” Kirielle proposed, smiling at her as she helped the other girl stand up. “Sorry for yelling, before.”

“Sorry too. I guess we solved the ‘getting hurt’ part of the plan, though, right?”

“I guess,” Kirielle hesitantly agreed. “It doesn’t feel right, though.” After a moment, she added, “If you really don’t like soldiers, we can be something else.” 

Nochka sighed. “It’s okay. But only until Friday, after that, we’re changing, yeah?” 

“What do you want to be next?” 

“Uh, maybe royalty? Or mages. Oh, or explorers!” Lieutenant Nochka told her, excitedly enough that her pain was momentarily forgotten. 

“Sure,” Captain Kirielle snickered. “Make a list of everything you like and we’ll let Kana choose from there.” 

As if summoned, the smaller girl appeared with Imaya behind her. “Are you hurt, Nochka? What happened?”

“I hurt my head with a branch,” Lieutenant Nochka told her as General Imaya brushed her hair out of her face to see the injury better. It was just a patch of skin that was slightly redder than the rest, and wasn’t bleeding, but Captain Kirielle thought it looked like it might swell.

“I have first aid inside the house. Come on, hurry up, girls.” 

“Actually,” Lieutenant Nochka started, not walking at all, “Can… Can Zorian heal me? In the workshop?”

General Imaya looked at her dubiously. “Is there a reason you want him to heal you? He should be back in less than half an hour, in any case.”

“It’s for our mission,” Captain Kirielle interfered. “Please, Miss Imaya.” 

The older woman sighed. “Fine, but we’re keeping an ice pack on the bump until he comes home.” 

They all readily agreed, and after Lieutenant Nochka was given a slightly wet towel with ice inside and told to sit on the counter and not move much, General Imaya took the cupcakes out of the oven. At this point they mostly looked like muffins, though, but Captain Kirielle was confident they'd become the most beautiful cupcakes in history once they decorated them. For now, they were told to leave the cupcakes alone while they cooled down. They spent a few minutes disentangling the white flowers from one another, and once they'd finished that placed them on a cloth bag until the next step of the operation was complete. All three agreed that the wait was mind-numbingly (another word Kirielle had learned from her brother) boring.

"We're home," a voice finally said from the entrance. Captain Kirielle wasn't sure how her brother managed to enter the house when the front door was locked, especially since she didn't even hear the door open, but she brushed it away in favor of more pressing matters. 

"Brother! Nochka got hurt. Is there anything in Mr Kael's workshop that might help her?" Captain Kirielle had never been known for being patient. 

"How bad is it?" Admiral Zach asked seriously as they both stepped into the kitchen, looking over at Lieutenant Nochka. "I know healing magic, I probably can heal whatever it is."

Lieutenant Nochka looked at the wall, "I really think I need something from the workshop. It's a pretty big bump." It wasn't, but she lifted the towel with the ice to let him take a look. Zorian was standing against the wall, seemingly content to just watch the events unfold. 

Captain Kirielle subtly grabbed Admiral Zach's sleeve and winked at him. "Do you know of anything in the workshop that might help?" 

"Oh. Oh, yeah, I remember now, we made an ointment with Kael the other day that should help. Why don't we go look for it? C'mon girls." He winked back at Captain Kirielle as the three of them followed him out of the kitchen. Zorian looked confused, as he hadn't had a clear view of either of their winks, but didn't really question Admiral Zach's actions. He did follow them to the workshop, though. Maybe he was curious? Captain Kirielle found it hard to read her brother most of the time, nowadays. 

Once they got to the workshop, Admiral Zach got something similar to the salve Zorian had applied to Captain Kirielle's knee. He slowly opened it and applied it on Lieutenant Nochka's forehead. Captain Kirielle had trouble trying to stay out of Zorian's line of sight, and she definitely couldn't carry the operation like that, since her brother was sure to snitch on her. She communicated this to Admiral Zach by gently kicking him on the calf and quickly looking towards Zorian. 

"Ah, Zorian. Do you know how this thing was made?" 

"You were there, Zach. You already know how it was made.” 

“Well, you know how I sometimes forget stuff. I just want to make sure I remember the recipe correctly. Besides…” Admiral Zach coughed and looked away from Captain Kirielle’s brother, “I was a bit distracted that day. Had other things in my mind, and stuff.” 

“Oh." Curiously enough, Zorian also looked away from the other boy. "Yeah. Well, then, I guess there’s no harm explaining it again. First, we used nightshade dust and…” Her brother had, at some point, walked over to stand right next to Admiral Zach. He was seemingly too focused on the other boy to watch over Captain Kirielle, so she took advantage of the opportunity to find where the flowers were stored.

It didn’t take much searching. On plain sight, a jar filled with white flowers similar to the ones in Captain Kirielle’s possession rested on top of the counter. Kirielle quickly and quietly opened the jar, placed the flowers inside, and closed it. 

By the time the last step of the operation was done, Zorian was still talking to Admiral Zach. Apparently, he had deviated from the recipe and ended up talking about the properties of rare magical ingredients that Kael had told him when they were searching for them in a forest, once. Kirielle didn’t remember them going to the forest, but she guessed they might have gone when she wasn’t paying attention. Did that mean there was a forest outside of Cyoria? Maybe they could have a picnic there, one day. 

She gave Admiral Zach a thumbs up behind her brother’s back. The boy had long since finished applying the salve to Nochka’s forehead, and had even added a quick healing spell so the bruise wasn’t even there anymore, but had decided to keep listening to Zorian’s rambling, leaning against one of the walls. When he saw Kirielle’s signal, he smiled at her and gave her a thumbs up of his own. They were lucky that Admiral Zach was always willing to help them in their missions, even without a proper explanation. He seemingly thought that most of their plans were mainly pranks in nature, although they had lots of complicated schemes, from how to take her brother’s stones and gems under his bed to make themselves jewelry and other things, to how to get Kael to take them on trips around the city. Admiral Zach did, however, usually ask them for the full story after the mission was over. Captain Kirielle liked to think of it as a mission report. 

In any case, as soon as their mission was complete, the three girls left the room in a hurry. Best not to be seen near the crime scene, after all. Just as good, too, because they hadn’t even reached the living room before Miss Imaya called out to them to decorate the cupcakes. 

* * * 

“This is… quite strange,” Kael commented. Him, Zorian and Zach were all currently in the workshop, after Kael had asked Zorian to update the copy of Kael’s research. Or whatever it was the guy did. Zach didn’t really understand how he stored entire notebooks on his mind. In any case, the month wasn’t ending, yet, but it was just in case the restart ended early, for whatever motive. Zach didn’t really need to be in the room, but had nothing better to do, so he’d followed the other two to the workshop after lunch, once he got Kirielle to tell him what they’d been plotting. He’d been slightly worried that they might’ve messed with Kael’s ingredients, which could cause all kinds of accidents, but apparently they’d just given back something they’d unintentionally stolen. As always, he was right to trust them. The worst they’d ever done was annoy Zorian, and even that was fairly amusing. 

“What is?” Zorian asked the morlock. 

“There are daffodils in my nightshade jar. I’m absolutely sure I didn’t misplace them. How could they have gotten in there?”

“Maybe they grew legs and walked over to it?” Zach suggested. 

“Do you think it could have been the cranium rats? I haven’t seen them in the house, but they might have found a way in we’re not aware of.” Zorian theorized, ignoring Zach.

“I doubt it, but I also can’t think of any other explanation. It’s still weird, mixing alchemical ingredients seems pretty… tame for the invaders. There’s nothing wrong with the flowers as far as I can tell, only a couple of daffodils which were handled just a tad bit too roughly. Both flowers are the white sort of subspecies, and at first glance might be confused with one another, so it’s possible someone might have placed them there in hopes that I’d use the wrong ingredients and potentially mess up a procedure, but it would be terribly amateurish of me not to check which kind of flower I’m using. It doesn’t make any sense.” 

At this point, it was hard for Zach to contain a snicker, seeing how the other two thought it was some sort of elaborate plot of the invaders when in reality it was just 3 little girls who couldn’t tell the difference between two types of flowers. Zorian and Kael immediately turned to look at him. 

“Do you know anything, Zach?” Zorian asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, I just might. But I’m afraid I have been sworn to secrecy and cannot possibly breach such an important pact. The trust three beautiful ladies have placed on my person depends on it.” 

Zorian just groaned and muttered about meddlesome little sisters and annoyingly distracting boyfriends.

* * * 

After lunch had finished, Captain Kirielle, Lieutenant Nochka, and Commander Kana were congratulating each other on their successful mission. Well, the first two were, while the last one was satisfied to just watch and add her glass of juice when they toasted. 

“So, what’s our next mission?” Lieutenant Nochka asked, drinking her juice.

“I was thinking maybe we should focus on the construction of our headquarters. I’ve been brainstorming how to go around the branch problem, since an accident could happen again, and I thought maybe we could cover the branches with a blanket or cloth so it’s more visible? We’d need five blankets for this, one for the floor, and four for the walls. I’m not sure how to do the door, though.” 

“Maybe we could find some of those branches that have two or more small branches on the end, so it could support the blanket and let us crawl in?”

“That’s a very good idea, Lieutenant. What furniture should we include in the planning of our headquarters?”

“Oh, definitely some cushions to use as chairs, and we’d need a small table. Do you think your brother would make us a table?”

Captain Kirielle hesitated. “Maybe if we ask nicely?” 

At that moment, General Imaya called out to them, “Girls, I need your help in the kitchen, urgently!”

“What seems to be the problem, General Imaya?” Captain Kirielle asked as they ran to their General.

“We’ve baked too many cupcakes to finish them by ourselves, Captain Kirielle,” the older woman replied, an amused tone in her voice. “We might need outside help.” 

“Those are terrible news, General! But worry not, I have an excellent plan in mind. I’ll fetch my brother and his boyfriend so they can help us solve this catastrophe.”

“What a great solution you have come up with, Captain. Be sure to mention there are both chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.”

“That won't be necessary, General. By the time they come out, the chocolate cupcakes won't be no more,” she informed her as she saluted and went to complete the quest she’d been given.


End file.
